Finding Valhalla
In 1957 Earl Ingebright began
searching for some land for family recreation
and as an investment.
He lived in North Seattle and it seemed
like everyone he knew was looking for recreation property or had a
"cabin" on
Bainbridge Island or
Whidbey Island or
Hood Canal.
His kids were 6, 13 and 16.
Earl wanted some forested land and Laurine wanted a
place on Hood Canal
close to the saltwater, swimming and boating. Laurine had
great memories of summers spent at
Twanoh State Park,
where the best warm salt
water swimming in the northwest could be found. They watched the newspaper ads and talked to
friends.
The couple began to localize their search to the area north of Everett because
it was within a fifty mile radius of their home, no ferry needed, no islands. An
interesting property came up for sale in the local newspaper (view
ad torn from paper)
It was on the
Jordan Road near
the Stilliguamish River and the town
Granite Falls. They looked at the property and it fit the idea.
About 63 acres, it had a creek, a
house and a substantial amount of forest.
They discovered the homestead house had
a history that
led to the original pioneer family buried
in the cemetery down the road. But there was certain magic to the place. Perhaps it was
the 900-foot sheer rock cliffs of
Deer Mountain that dominated the east property line. Maybe it was
something else. There was a draw, this place was
different. Awesome. Plus enough property to really have some fun with it, make
things, build things, manage a forest--all just an hour from Seattle. There was even little known ten acre
King Lake nearby and a 200' waterfall
all accessible by a
rough trail adjoining the property. The lake and surrounding acreage were owned by Scott
Paper from the 1900 era loggings and
was thought to be abandoned and little known except to locals.
In addition to the main
two bedroom house there was a barn, another open shed and outhouse
built for double occupancy. All were
in pretty bad shape. Earl
bought it!
The Early years
The house
was slowly reconditioned for weekend livability by the family and a squadron of
volunteers from church and friends. It had been well built,
completely out of cedar with old growth
beams and straight cedar boards, expertly notched and planed by some skilled builder
a hundred years ago. The double walls were insulated with coarse local sawdust,
probably from a nearby sawmill. It was a good feature given the cold
winters in the northwest. This area of Snohomish County had been
steam-logged
around 1900 and sawdust must have been
plentiful. To finish the inside, a paste was evidently made from a mixture of flour and water
and used
with newspapers and applied to the walls. It kept the sawdust from
spilling out from gaps between the boards. Next there was wallpaper. Ingebrights
pulled off the moldy wallpaper and found the original Seattle newspapers were readable and showed
dates and news from
around 1901. They just left the walls that way, it was kind of cool.
Earl continued to fix up the
house and
barn on
weekends. Friends and relatives donated old furniture and
in no time they had a serious vegetable garden.
He and Laurine expanded the wooded trails to the back of the property and were
always ready to "hike to the back".
With the family living in North Seattle, a day at the "farm" was an easy
hour's drive each way, so you could come up for the day, enjoy the break from the
city and be home in time for
dinner.
Beavers moved into
a wetland in the middle of the property and constructed
series of dams across Jordan creek. A
five-acre pond appeared and Earl
found it
had excellent trout fishing. In fact the
fishing, trapping and hunting was so good that local people took
advantage of it. As soon as the family arrived on a Saturday morning, Earl immediately "hiked
to the back" to kick out any trespassers trapping or fishing the ponds. It was
almost every week that hunters and fishermen were back there despite signage.
The
“Farm” as they called it, soon became the place to spend weekends, celebrate birthdays, summer holidays or just about any other excuse for a picnic with friends
and a hike.
Both the Ingebrights, their friends and groups from their
church found spirituality
in the woods, the towering trees and and the stunning nearby deer mountain cliffs. Running water from the
homestead well, an outdoor
solar-heated shower and refrigeration from a donated Antique Ice Box
provided creature comforts.
One winter project was a
plywood rowboat
built from a magazine and later
Earl bought an
old Ford Model T tractor from a neighbor and it provided an better way to get
firewood and maintain the trails. The weekends through these years were full of
family fun and
enjoyment of the property with gardening,
woodcraft, hiking, fishing and the enjoyment of nature, all in a private setting.
Earl's
two daughters had by then, moved out of state and begun college, careers and families.
One focal
point of each summer was a big office party, a
Salmon BBQ
hosted by
Earl and his friends Fred Lombard and
Bob Clifton.
Fred and
Bob had purchased land in
LaConner
(another hour drive north) near the
Swinomish Indian Reservation. They were friends with
some of the Swinomish Indians
and
Fred learned a
NW Indian method
of cooking a salmon over an Alder fire using green sapling trees and chicken
wire to hold the fish. Earl
invited his whole Post Office Inspection dept and attendance to these “Clajm
Bakes” soon grew to nearly 100 people. The salmon was slow cooked and smoked over an alder fire
and tasted just out out of this world. They had funny games like
treasure hunts, egg tosses (with one egg hard boiled) and a door
prize that was a door off of an old car. One hilarious, but seriously taken
game was the use of a "dowsing
rod" or "water witch" where people would try their hand at the
mysterious art of locating water by holding a forked stick from an
apple tree. You walked around with this forked stick until you were over
underground water
and it would mysteriously begin to point downward. More on that later. Another door prize was the head of a
salmon mounted on a plaque that had to be kept frozen by its winner and brought
back the next year.
One year Fred had an idea to
make and hide a water geyser at the bottom of the BBQ fire pit. It was all hooked up,
buried and
hidden weeks before the party. Just before
it was time to serve the salmon, Earl got the attention of everyone and
announced that Fred would now conjure up the God of all Salmon or some other
zany thing. On cue, Earl's son David furiously pumped on an old WWII fire pump hidden in
the woods and a geyser of water shot up out of the middle of the fire. You
could hear everyone draw in a breath as they witnessed this pure act of magic.
It all
culminated in a last Salmon Barbeque on the 23rd of July 1969. The day
man first walked on the Moon. That afternoon, Earl announced his transfer to be
the Inspector in Charge, Post Office San Francisco Region. It was a good
party but it ended on a sad note. The family had to move to
California. They boarded up the old homestead house, chained the barn
doors closed,
sold some of the equipment, locked the gate and said goodbye to Valhalla.
The 1970's
Six years later in 1975, Earl retired after 30 years
with the Post Office. He was Inspector in Charge, New York Region, having been
promoted from San Francisco in 1972. Earl and Laurine moved back to Seattle and began to
figure out retired life. Earl went to check on the state of the farm and returned
home sick to his stomach. The farmhouse had been ransacked, everything stolen and all the
windows smashed. The same with the barn. The power poles had even been taken out
by the power company. The gate on Jordan Road was gone. He thought,
well no big deal, it was all second hand, giveaways, what could you do now. He
walked away from it, now just a road into the the woods. It was a travesty that
this could happen without anyone knowing.
Somewhat frustrated with the burglary and vandalism at the farm and still wanting to work in Law Enforcement,
Earl decided to run for Snohomish County Sheriff. He was unsuccessful but had fun trying
his hand in local politics, getting to know the local political machine, making speeches and drumming up support for his cause. He
and Laurine bought a condo in a nicely built condo community named
Noble
Firs in North Seattle. Then he bought five
acres of wooded land near La Conner from his friend Bob Clifton. He and Laurine had a lot of accumulated
furniture and stuff to store so he had a
local Swinomish builder construct a double
car garage and shop. He began spending time there working on woodcraft projects
and making the place the way he wanted it. He even added a bathroom.
David moved back to Seattle in 1976 after college and
serving in the Coast Guard. He too still
felt the magic of the "farm" and remembered all the fun times
growing up. When he went and checked on things he too came away sick to see the
mess. But still the land was there and it brought back fun memories from long ago.
The real beauty of the place remained. A feeling of peace
and solitude when passing through the gate, the clear waters of the ponds, the
clatter of Jordan Creek, the big trees ,the
glistening of the sheer rock cliffs in the morning sun. David
began to spend hisweekends there, camping in the picnic shed, working on the trails, woodcraft projects
and relaxing.
He and Earl built a new security
gate, the first of several.
It was a great work-life balance to Dave's career at Boeing Flight Test. He
began to fix up the place. In examining the
old homestead house he discovered
there was evidently a later addition (kitchen and pantry) to the original cedar structure. He and
some friends tore down the
falling apart kitchen addition and left the old floor for a porch. He replaced the glass, built a stove from an old barrel and
made a sleeping loft. With no
power, the place ran on a 12-volt car battery complete with a car tape
deck stereo and lighting in the loft and kitchen. Earl and Laurine gradually
came back, at first for a dinner BBQ and later to hike the trails and visit King Lake and enjoy the magic of Valhalla. Earl had begun his college
education in Forestry and was interested in managing the forest to it's full
potential. Valhalla's valuable timber needed a master
plan.
The 1980s
Earl and Laurine, and especially David continued to enjoy the place and its
numerous outdoor recreation opportunities.
The Farm
had been logged about 1900 and the second growth had done well. The healthy mix of Fir, Hemlock, Alder,
Fir and Cedar had matured nicely in the Western Washington climate. Earl
decided to hire a consultant forester and together they worked out a long-range plan for the management of the Valhalla timber. It was agreed that the front
"twenty" needed to be clear-cut and immediately replanted. The
stand was stagnating and there were signs of
laminated root rot.
He
contracted with a logger and the clear-cut was completed in the spring
of 1987. Earl had it replanted it with one-year-old fast growing Weyerhaeuser Douglas
Fir seedlings, about 400 trees per acre. With the dollars from
the logging, he had a
20x30 pole building
constructed and brought in power. A phone line followed and the place
became more civilized than it had been in a long time. Earl bought an old
Case tractor to help with roads and firewood. David continued to
enjoy the place, staying in the old house on weekends and hiking and fishing with friends.
The 1990s
Earl had long wanted to design and draft plans for his
dream getaway cabin, a "family condo".
He took his drawings to a designer and had the drawings formalized. The County building
dept said "no, its not right" so he hired another designer with sharper
skills. The house was two story three bedroom, three-bath house with a basement.
His vision was an open floor plan with
enough space to entertain and serve three families without having jam-ups. He had the shell of the house built and
he and Dave plumbed it and
wired it. Other finishing jobs were farmed out and Earl trimmed it with wood milled from
leftover Valhalla timber.
Earl had a well drilled in the spot where everyone found water during his
long-ago dousing rod competitions. The well driller encountered solid rock and Earl had
them stop at 140 ft. The well produced water but it was low flow and smelled
a bit like sulfur. He and David decided to run a
1/2 mile water line from a
spring he had discovered
on their land halfway up the mountain. It worked great, providing year-round fresh water to
his house and with pressure working on gravity only. He then constructed a
smaller garage/barn
near the picnic shed. It
was made from the straight, old growth 6x6 cedar beams saved from the original barn.
It housed the
tractor and an old Oliver bulldozer, a gift from Bob Clifton.
Earl now began spending most every day at the tree farm, driving up from North
Seattle for the day and bringing along a thermos of coffee and a sandwich for
lunch. He bought a
Kubota tractor to really get around and do work around the place. Laurine stayed home and worked on her sewing, EK Sorority board and social circles. Dinner was usually on the
table when he arrived home in the late afternoon.
By 1993,
more changes were in the wind. A large parcel of land behind Valhalla including King Lake was up for sale. Comprised of about 180 Acres, it had the
same second growth timber as the farm. Earl and David discussed ways to raise the
funds to make the $660K
asking price. "Why not find a way to buy it", David said. "Build a road into it from our place,
clear
cut it, parcel it into twenty acre lots and sell them as a community". Earl decided
it was not doable so they held their breath. It was sold to three investors, a local attorney and his developer
brother and another investor, a retired doctor. They named it Twin Falls because
of two waterfalls visible from the top of Jordan Peak.
There was no legal access to the 180 acres and the investors wanted to negotiate with Earl to obtain permission to use the Valhalla entrance road. Earl
talked to his lawyer and had an easement
agreement drawn up that required Twin Falls to maintain the road and install an
electric security gate. The easement also
specified restrictions on what could be done
at twin falls, no pig farms, trailers or businesses except small office-type
businesses and a limit on the number of houses. The easement was
traded for a 100 ft wide (5 acre total) buffer between Twin Falls and Valhalla
along the Valhalla
northeast property line.
The Twin Falls investors proceeded to build a road to the lake and to the top of Jordan
Peak, clear cut
the 180 acres and divided
it into 20 acre parcels for sale. Power, water and telephone utilities were all run
to the top of Jordan Peak and there was even a pumping system with
storage tanks near the
top. The investors sold a couple of lots and kept
the nicest ones at the top of the mountain for themselves. Four houses were
soon built on a total of sixteen lots. One cool house on the
north side of Jordan Peak was even featured in
Dwell
Magazine. The road system was open to
Valhalla
and gave access to King Lake and the Valhalla back 7.5 acres below the rock cliffs.
David and Earl continued to have a blast working on projects making
Valhalla a little nicer. The
picnic pavillion
provided a nice backdrop for gatherings of 20-30 people and there was sufficient
parking for twenty cars or so on grass below the house. Earl had salmon bakes with his church group,
parties with alumnae from their high school, and holidays like July 4th.
They added a
water faucet and updated the outhouse.
Earl became interested in home winemaking and decided to plant about a half acre
in northern climate, European grape varieties. He and David took a class in
winemaking and began a new fun hobby that ran all the way from trellising the
grapes to crushing and bottling. They even won a few ribbons from the local wine
club.
Later that year
they built a scout camp with an outhouse, fire
circle and running water near popcorn pond. Earl and David were
interested in
finding ways to give back to the community and sharing the magic of the Valhalla
property. They found a couple of local scout troops and began hosting scout camping
getaways. Around this time, David recalled the fun office
parties his father had and began having a
small rock concert
every August with three or four garage bands and all their friends. "In
1996 David's Daughter Shannon was born to David and wife Karen.
In 1997 the Twin Falls investors acquired an
additional 200 acres to the east, most of it inaccessible or unusable wetland.
In exchange for potential additional traffic on the easement road, Twin Falls
traded a seven acre
block of land adjoining the Valhalla back forty. Earl began
collaborating with other private forest owners in the
tree farming community and worked with the WSU Extension Service to learn ways
to maximize the health of the Valhalla forest holdings. In 1999 Earl offered David
the opportunity to pick out a
home site for himself. The answer was Yes! Earl
and David outlined a spot on top of a small rise facing Deer Mountain along with some
acreage. Application
for a boundary line adjustment was made to the county and it was approved in 2000.
The 2000s
Dave got to work deciding on a retirement/getaway
house. He settled on a
classic northwest prow house design and found a
package offered by
Linwood Homes in British Columbia. He had the shell built in 2001 and worked on it for the next
seven years weekends and summers, doing what he could and contracting out the
rest. It turned out really
nice and he moved in August of
2007.
Earl began to go after a couple of other big projects he'd always wanted to do.
He used David's builder to build a
double car garage and upstairs woodshop. Earl
had enough tools to outfit the shop and really have a place to do some
serious woodworking.
Earl had always wanted to build a bridge across the creek. For some reason, it was a dream
construction project and he was always looking at the creek for possible
crossings. One spot along the creek
near the back of the property was perfect, an easy bridge crossing
using Valhalla lumber
with a road constructed climbing up to to a small wooded knoll above the creek.
He figured the bridge would enable access to
construct a small cabin on that hill, another
of Earls dreams. Using mostly lumber from the tree farm,
he and his granddaughter Jill built a
one room cabin mostly fashioned after the "hytte"
cabins their Norwegian cousins owned in the mountains of Norway. Earl even built a
replica bunk bed
the same as his cousins had in their hytte.
Still interested in maintaining the forest in top condition,
Earl and David took a Forest Stewardship Class from the
Washington
State University extension service and worked up a forest
stewardship plan for the tree farm.
The class gave them the information and mentoring to
write the application for the state dept of natural resources logging permit and
apply for a grant that would
replace an old culvert on a small tributary to
Jordan creek, which was considered a
salmon fish barrier by the fish biologists from the
Stilliguamish
Indian Tribe The immediate plan involved harvesting of the mature
alder stands that stood on the edges of the fir and a few other places around the
farm. The
logging was accomplished
in 2008 and it was decided to plant western red cedar seedlings in
the newly logged areas instead of Douglas fir. Earl and David thought the cedar
trees would bring a higher dollar return when harvested and also be immune to
the laminated root rot spores that still prevailed in the soil. In 2010 Earl and
Laurine were named
Tree Farmer of the year by the
American tree farm system and were presented
with a plaque and large sign. It was a pretty big deal, they were rock stars!
Earl celebrated by purchasing a small
excavator. David married Jan Stevenson and they began a life together
in the newly-finished prow house.
Earl couldn't help but watch what was going on at the Twin Falls community adjacent to Valhalla. The owners
languished after the initial burst of four houses. Nothing was happening, but
that was fine with him. The lake and mountain roads were a lot more accessible
and the vistas from the top of Jordan Peak were incredible. One
of the partners paved the road all the way from Jordan Road to his
new house on the lake. In 2012 the attorney partner decided to run
for a county judge position and his campaign needed an fast infusion of cash.
He offered "Lot 16"
to Earl for a cash price and soon it became the latest addition the very back of the tree farm. This lot
expanded his Valhalla holdings to over 100 acres and was a nice addition to the tree farm
southeast boundary. It would also give the family legal rights to use the Twin
Falls road system and King Lake. They built a trail running upstream
along
the creek from the Hytte to access the bottom of the lot. Jill
Messecar found another beaver pond and they
named it "Jill's Secret Lake".
In 2013 Laurine passed away after a long illness and
Earl moved to a
retirement community in Granite Falls. He hired
a local young man to bring him to the farm every day where he continued to work
on woodcraft and various farm maintenance items. The young man, Scott began part
time assisting Earl on other farm maintenance, gardening and always a new
project.
In 2013 David retired from Boeing Flight Test and began to figure out retired
life. It was pretty obvious for him, continue making the farm a cool place and
now the ability to live on the property, manage the forest, work on upgrades and
maintenance, garden, water system and or just enjoy an afternoon on the patio.
He and Earl continued to work together on various Valhalla
maintenance and upgrade projects. In 2014 with a new part time hired man, Tom, the
three planned and completed several significant road and trail expansions along
with the construction of a Sauna and
a
Norwegian chapel
using construction methods to make it a replica of a 1300's stave church.
The 1986 forest began to show problems partly due to lack of good tree spacing. It had
a condition known as crown lock and there were areas where Alder was crowding,
and other parts of the stand were thin, leggy and prone to windfall damage.
